Typically, in courses I have taken I am either doing an assignment in which I am designing or explaining theory such as a paper or I am carrying out a design such as labs, but this was a unique experience where I got to do both. This process gave me a greater appreciation for how theory in ecology is developed through my first-hand experiences.
One issue that I was having with my data collection was getting random coordinates that landed on the maintained area within the parameters I set. I had to make an adjustment to map out 5 areas in the park that were predominantly the maintained area so that I did not have to frequently be getting new coordinates. I also made it so that these 5 maintained patches were spread throughout the park and then did my randomization in the 5 areas.
I gained an appreciation for ecology through doing this project. I gained a greater understanding of how people come up with hypothesises from their observations in the natural world and try and understand what is driving what they see. I have walked through Hunter Park many times before this project as it is close to my house, however, when I would do observations at the park for this project my mindset was different as I was using a scientific lens.
I also found that having to learn about how to design and implement a study and not just write out what my methods would be but actually do the methods through my data collection gave me a better appreciation for the methods sections of ecology papers that the question sets were based on. I found myself engaging with the methods section of the paper a lot more than normal, and not just because a question asked me to explain the methods. I would picture myself as the researcher performing the methods that they laid out and this visualization gave me a greater appreciation for their work. I can now clearly picture the researchers at their site as they formulate ideas based on their observations and how from these observations, they could formulate a hypothesis.
Cheers,
Reid Marriott (T00716013)